Behind the scenes: 'Sister Play' written for Harbor Stage actors

Playwright John Kolvenbach remembers the genesis of “Sister Play” this way: For about 10 years, he'd been watching the work of, and sometimes working with, the actors who banded together to create Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet.

Playwright John Kolvenbach remembers the genesis of “Sister Play” this way: For about 10 years, he'd been watching the work of, and sometimes working with, the actors who banded together to create Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet. He was hanging around the group last year and mentioned casually to artistic director Robert Kropf that they should work together.

Soon after, he got an email from Kropf, saying how much he was looking forward to having Kolvenbach write a play for Harbor Stage.

In a phone interview, Kolvenbach laughs about how that wasn't exactly what he'd meant, but then he realized it was a great idea. He used the dramatic and comedic strengths and facility that he knew the four actors – Kropf, Brenda Withers, Stacy Fischer and Jonathan Fielding – had from seeing and admiring their work. He added in some inside references to their personal lives and personalities, and built on an idea he'd had about family.

He started on the play a year ago, then the group visited him in New York City for a reading. After that, he rewrote the ending and other sections of the play, then brought the work here this summer for its world premiere. He's also directing, and will take the play to San Francisco early next year, though with a different group of actors.

“Sister Play” is a comedic drama, he says, that is “basically about the perils of intimacy, for lack of a better phrase” and “the universal desire for a protector, someone to watch over us.”

The description on Harbor Stage's website expands that to note that two sisters “in a dilapidated Cape Cod cabin” are “haunted by the memory of their departed father” and “encounter hope and heartache in the visage of a mysterious stranger.”

To get inspired for the setting, Kolvenbach says Kropf took him on a tour of several “spidery and moldy Cape Cod dumps,” noting they're “easy to find” in the area. The set built on the Harbor stage is meant to be realistic, and Harbor didn't have to spend much money to furnish it.

“Happily,” Kolvenbach says, “everything from the swap shop is appropriate for this play.”

Theater Under the Stairs is back, with another updated, kid-friendly version of a classic tale: “The Kind of True Story of Mona Coyote,” which runs through Aug. 22, is based on Miquel de Cervantes' “Don Quixote.”

The new play is written by Christopher Compton and directed by Holly Erin McCarthy. It's described as “a swashbuckling tale about a girl who shares Don Quixote's vivid imagination and hunger for adventure; through her power of pretending, she changes the world around her.”

“It's a play about playing,” Compton says in a press release. “Mona is convinced the world is a video game and she is its hero. To her, the boring town of Bixby is a world filled with monsters to be vanquished, treasures to be found, and damsels to be saved from dungeons.”

In the game with her is friend Sammy Panzo, a bored 11-year-old who works at his mother's business. Their adventures include sidekicks, monsters, potions and magic.

Theater Under the Stairs' summer family show is designed to entertain families, but also teach the kids involved about theater. Compton and McCarthy's lives were transformed by theater as children and, in a press release, Compton says that it's their mission “to pass that gift on.”

Shows are at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Wednesday through Aug. 22 at Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Route 28. Tickets: $10. Reservations: artsonthecape.org or 508-428-0669.

Sandwich residents celebrating their town with a year of events around the 375th anniversary felt that Thornton Wilder's play “Our Town” was a perfect theatrical addition. Shows are at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday at Town Hall.

“Our Town,” written in 1938, tells the story of the everyday lives of an average town's citizens in the early 20th century. While set in the years between 1901 and 1913, a press release from the group says the play “is as relevant in 2014 as it was in 1938.”

Melinda Gallant is directing, and the show is being produced by the Sandwich 375th Committee and The Sandwich Town Hall Preservation Trust. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at Splash Stationers, Titcombs Book Store, and Heart of Stone in Sandwich and Sandwich Town Hall. Information: www.sandwich375.com.

For more theater news, check out Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll's blog at www.capecodonline.com/stagedoor and follow KathiSDCCT on Twitter.